How to Make a Resume

In a job search, the most important thing is your resume. Before a potential employer meets you, he uses your resume to decide whether to call you back for an interview. When you're writing a resume, you want to make sure you format it professionally. Here are some resume writing tips.

Personal Information

At the top of your resume, include your identifying information like your name, mailing address, phone number, and email address. Most word processing programs will format your email address as a hyperlink, making it blue and underlined. One of the best resume writing tips is to remove this formatting so your email address looks like the rest of the text.

Objective

State your objective. When youíre writing a resume, you can help prospective employers decide whether youíre a good fit for a position by stating your goal or objective in your resume. Of course, you can always leave out your objective if you aren't sure about the field you want to work in, but realize it could make you less marketable.

Education

Put your education first if you're still in school or you've recently graduated. Otherwise, if you've been out of school for awhile, where you went to college won't be as important, so put your education at the bottom of your resume.

Work Experience

List your relevant work experience. Include internships and other experience. Be honest and donít exaggerate details about your work. List your jobs in chronological order with the most recent position at the top of the list. It's not necessary to list all your work experience, especially if you have a lengthy work history. Focus on the most recent jobs that are related to the position youíre applying for.

References

On your resume, add a line that states "References available upon request." Then, prepare a separate reference list with the names and contact information for your references. Make sure you contact references beforehand to let them know you're including them on your list. That way, your references won't be surprised when they're contacted by one of your prospective employers.

Resume Length

Keep your resume between one and two pages. One page is sufficient if you are a recent college graduate or if you've only been in the workforce for a few years. Two pages of important information may be necessary if youíve been working for several years.

Font Type and Size

After you know how to make a resume, you have to know how to format it. Use a standard 10 to 12 point black font. Use a simple font like Times New Roman, Arial, or Verdana. When you're writing a resume, don't use colored, script, or playful fonts because they do not convey professionalism. Use the same font throughout your entire resume so that it's consistent. You may bold, italicize, and underline certain parts of your resume to highlight that information.

How to Build a Resume

Finally, we strongly encourage you to try our free resume builder service - ResumeBuilderTemplate.com. The builder takes the guesswork out of how to do a resume. It prompts you for details about your objective, education, and work experience, then formats those details into an attractive resume that you can print or save as a .doc or. pdf file. Even better, with this service, your resume remains in digital format online allowing you to quickly and easily link to it from online job applications rather than attaching or uploading a saved copy from your computer. If you use popular social networking and other web 2.0 sites like Facebook and Twitter in your job search, you can easily integrate your resume to your profiles and thus contribute to your professional online identity and allow prospective employers find you more easily.